Life and Fate (Stalingrad, #2)

by Vasily Grossman

‘Dmitry Petrovich,’ he said, ‘when you began, I was thinking that I might be arrested any day and that I wasn’t in the mood for philosophy. Suddenly I quite forgot about Kovchenko, Shishakov and comrade Beria; I forgot that I might be thrown out of my laboratory tomorrow and into prison on the following day. But what I felt as I listened to you was not joy, but utter despair. We think we’re so wise – to us Hercules seems like a child with rickets. And yet on this very day the Germans are slaughtering Jewish children and old women as though they were mad dogs. And we ourselves have endured 1937 and the horrors of collectivization – famine, cannibalism and the deportation of millions of unfortunate peasants . . . Once, everything seemed simple and clear. But these terrible losses and tragedies have confused everything. You say man will be able to look down on God – but what if he also becomes able to look down on the Devil? What if he eventually surpasses him? You say life is freedom. Is that what people in the camps think? What if the life expanding through the universe should use its power to create a slavery still more terrible than your slavery of inanimate matter? Do you think this man of the future will surpass Christ in his goodness? That’s the real question. How will the power of this omnipresent and omniscient being benefit the world if he is still endowed with our own fatuous